Originally Posted by magerette
I count Arcanum as one of my favorites, but I have to say for a really interesting and original skill system, it did lack balance. I also don't remember feeling either frustrated or bored by the combat, but I remember feeling extremely ticked several times trying to build my character, and by the fact that you're forced to choose between tech and magic with very little blending allowed. I loved the world, the story and the atmosphere of the game enough to finish it, though, which back then I hardly ever had the time to do.

^What she said

I also don't remember the combat being so horrible and would not say it is "just bad" If you guys want bad gameplay the try out Mistmare.

I totally agree there needed to be better balancing, but it's not as horrible as most people think. Like tech, so what if things were heavy. Put the stuff in a crate. Also I never had a problem with firearms in RT mode. The shots got off in quick succession and I had a tank to keep the bigger baddies back.

Keep in mind this is after loading Drog's magical patches that fixed tons and tons of stuff in the game.

Agree with anyone criticising the combat and balance. The later guns were pretty good, but the early ones completely underwhelming. The weight of tech equipment was annoying but manageable. What was worse was having to backtrack through cleared multi-level dungeons through one of the worst movement interfaces whatsoever (with extremely limited pathfinding), that you couldnt rest inside dungeons (which made healing a PITA for tech characters until they find the medical arachnid in the last third of the game), and the rather idiotic way companions level up.

Still a favourite due to the setting, the writing, and the relative abundance of paths through the game…

I remember when this game first came out, a friend of mine commented, wow this steam-punk idea is great, the first of its kind. We need more games like this on the pc. Then I said to him, I guess you never heard of Thunderscape? It was a steampunk type pc game and came out long before Arcanum.

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
What was worse was having to backtrack through cleared multi-level dungeons through one of the worst movement interfaces whatsoever (with extremely limited pathfinding), that you couldnt rest inside dungeons (which made healing a PITA for tech characters until they find the medical arachnid in the last third of the game), and the rather idiotic way companions level up.

I agree the muli-level dungeons were a pain to back track through. The map screen helped with that, I could just plot a course through it and let the computer do the walking. I wish I could of put more waypoints though, I don't remember how many you could put up but it was never enough to get all the way back to the beginning.

For the healing I always had plenty of healing salves. What made it easier for me is that I always had at least 3 people in my party and always one of them was the half-giant (can't remember his name something like Grogg I think) So I put the heavy stuff with him and virgil or whichever the other character I had hold the healing salves and fatigue restorers. If I didn't have them then the dungeons would of been a lot harder.

Edit: I heard about Thunderscape but never bought it. Did it have a Steampunk setting as well? I always thought it was just another "Forgotten Realms" like setting.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
I agree the muli-level dungeons were a pain to back track through. The map screen helped with that, I could just plot a course through it and let the computer do the walking. I wish I could of put more waypoints though, I don't remember how many you could put up but it was never enough to get all the way back to the beginning.

The lack of waypoints was a serious limitation to that kind of movement. You needed to open the map 3 times or so to navigate through a dungeon this way. If you used it in a populated place (Tarant or the dwarf clan) the characters would stop moving if they collided with an NPC. As a movement interface it was horrible for a time when other games already had done this very basic thing right.

For the healing I always had plenty of healing salves. What made it easier for me is that I always had at least 3 people in my party and always one of them was the half-giant (can't remember his name something like Grogg I think) So I put the heavy stuff with him and virgil or whichever the other character I had hold the healing salves and fatigue restorers. If I didn't have them then the dungeons would of been a lot harder.

That's what I did too, but it ended up with a whole lot of micro-management in moving items between characters. And if you put the healing gear on a tech healer (Jayna Stiles?) she would burn through them extremely fast, and we are talking a finite resource (or rather one that it took a day or so for stores to resupply). Compared to having Virgil around (he succeeded often enough as long as you kept your aptitude fairly low) this was a major hassle and a horrid design. The healing salves and bandages should have been stackable and resting should have been allowed inside dungeons, there is just no sensible justification for the design choices.

I also recall one major imbalance in favour of techies. The molotov cocktail is a lvl 1 schematic that gives access to a fast and powerful area effect weapon that (unlike dynamite IIRC) doesnt hit friendlies, and can be made from fuel and crap Damn I've abused that weapon… Since it is extremely fast and wont explode on your friends you dont need any throwing skill to use it either

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
The lack of waypoints was a serious limitation to that kind of movement. You needed to open the map 3 times or so to navigate through a dungeon this way. If you used it in a populated place (Tarant or the dwarf clan) the characters would stop moving if they collided with an NPC. As a movement interface it was horrible for a time when other games already had done this very basic thing right.

That's what I did too, but it ended up with a whole lot of micro-management in moving items between characters. And if you put the healing gear on a tech healer (Jayna Stiles?) she would burn through them extremely fast, and we are talking a finite resource (or rather one that it took a day or so for stores to resupply). Compared to having Virgil around (he succeeded often enough as long as you kept your aptitude fairly low) this was a major hassle and a horrid design. The healing salves and bandages should have been stackable and resting should have been allowed inside dungeons, there is just no sensible justification for the design choices.

I also recall one major imbalance in favour of techies. The molotov cocktail is a lvl 1 schematic that gives access to a fast and powerful area effect weapon that (unlike dynamite IIRC) doesnt hit friendlies, and can be made from fuel and crap Damn I've abused that weapon… Since it is extremely fast and wont explode on your friends you dont need any throwing skill to use it either

All of the above I agree one hundred percent. One or two admenments I'd like to make to my post, first I meant Half-ogre not half-giant (I'm too used to Darksun, god I miss that game) and the second one is I didn't just stack the healing salves already made. I put the ingrediants in the other characters and I kept all the salves. That way they wouldn't go through them like a drugged out methhead. It worked well enough and I don't mind micro managing too much. It must be the Civ IV blood in me

But overall even with the bugs and then especially with the almighty Drogg fixing this beautiful game, I have to say it was one of the most unique and interesting settings I've come across next to MOTB, Darksun and Planescape and I really didn't have a problem with the combat at all.

First time through I did. I had tempus fugit and that cursed ax that was a game killer. I don't remember what it officially did, but everytime I hit them there was a chance that I would get speeded up and be able to knock the living crap out of the baddies in TB mode.

So for TB cheating choose a wizard with tempus fugit and you'll kill everything, for a mechanical character cheat, put the heaviest of items in your quickslot. The weight disappears. All in all that was my only problems with the game were those two cheats.

My second play through as a wizard I stayed away from tempus fugit and concentrated on really roleplaying a character. I chose a Necromancer character so I stuck with dark magic and summoning spells. It didn't feel so overpower that time through.

For my mechanic I always am a gunsliger with a knack for making things, love me some spiders Both of these characters worked very well and the combat didn't seem too easy or too hard. Funny though I never touched the Molotov Cocktail because I didn't have any throwing skill at all, so I didn't want to waste points in it. Maybe next time aroud I'll roleplay an elf throwing specilist who dabbled in one area of Tech (the molotov Cocktail) and then went back to being a pure fighter/mage. Sounds interesting……Damn too many games right now, must resist the urge to load Arcanum

I did. The underlying system is miles ahead of Arcanum and, frankly, most of the bugs didn't bother me. A whole slew of the bugs related to stuff like a weapon getting +1 THAC0, instead of the correct +2 etc. Annoying but not the end of the world.

DArtagnan

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Yeah, ToEE had an excellent implementation of the D&D 3.5 edition rules.

But I think most of the credit belongs to the designers of the PnP rules - not Troika.

The game was a hollow and buggy mess. But it DID capture the feel of old-school hack and slash almost to perfection.

the engine was good. I just wished they had selected *any* other 'module' to implement. ToEE is a pure hack&slash module very light in the RP department. I didn't like it in PnP and didn't like it in the computer game.